1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shock absorber housing for a vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to a shock absorber housing that can improve small overlap front crash response performance for a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, a suspension system for a vehicle is an apparatus for connecting a vehicle axle and a vehicle body and preventing the vehicle body or freight from being damaged and improving ride comfort by controlling vibration or impact which the vehicle axle receives from a road during running not to be directly transmitted to the vehicle body, and is formed of a chassis spring that lessens impact from a road, a shock absorber that enhances riding comfort by controlling free vibration of the chassis spring, and a stabilizer suppressing rolling of the vehicle body.
While a lower portion of the shock absorber is typically connected to a wheel by a knuckle or the like, an upper portion of the shock absorber is mounted to the vehicle body, and mainly serves to absorb and reduce vibration and impact that is transmitted to the vehicle body through the wheel.
A front shock absorber mounted on a front wheel of the vehicle among the above-described shock absorbers has an upper portion which is typically connected to the vehicle body through a front shock absorber housing.
The front shock absorber housing is substantially formed in a shape of a quadrangular box, and flanges are integrally formed along box-shaped edges and the flange at one side is coupled to a front side member extended along a length direction of the vehicle.
In addition, the flange at the other side of the front shock absorber housing is coupled to a fender apron upper member extended along the length direction of the vehicle and provided further out than the front side member along a width direction of the vehicle such that the front shock absorber housing is connected with the vehicle body through the front side member and the fender apron upper member.
However, in such a conventional front shock absorber housing mounting structure, when a vehicle experiences offset-collision with another vehicle or an object (hereinafter referred to as a collision object) while traveling, in particular, when the vehicle experiences a small overlap collision and thus an overlapped portion with the collision object at an outer portion along the width direction of the vehicle is small, the collision object hits not only front wheels but also the front shock absorber and the front shock absorber housing. In this case, when the front shock absorber housing is too thin, the front shock absorber housing absorbs impact energy transmitted from the collision object while being deformed due to the impact energy, but after collision with the collision object, the front shock absorber housing cannot induce width-directional movement of the vehicle (the vehicle turns aside with respect to the collision object to avoid continuous front collision with the collision object) so that performance of the vehicle responding to small overlap front collision of the vehicle cannot be improved.
Meanwhile, when the front shock absorber housing is too thick and thus has high strength, strength of a coupling portion between the front shock absorber housing and the front side member is lower than the strength of the front shock absorber housing itself. In this case, the front shock absorber housing is torn out and then lifted along the height direction of the vehicle before the front shock absorber housing is deformed while receiving impact energy from the collision object so that the front shock absorber housing cannot sufficiently perform impact absorbing performance, thereby causing weakening performance in response to a front collision of the vehicle.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.